John Taylor Wood : Sea Ghost of the Confederacy

"The scion of America's military and political leadership, John Taylor Wood was the grandson of Zachary Taylor and the nephew of Jefferson Davis. While his father and mother remained loyal to the Union, Wood himself resigned his commission at the U.S. Naval Academy and received a lieutenant's commission in the Confederate navy. He was best known for his raids against enemy ships. In one three-week period, he captured over thirty Union merchant vessels off the north Atlantic coast. Between raids he served on President Davis's staff, and was captured with Davis in May 1865 in Georgia. He escaped, made his way to Cuba and eventually settled in Nova Scotia."

If any human agency can assure success [of the mission] I think it will be accomplished by Col. Wood.
Robert E. Lee
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
1. The South Beckons
2. Aboard the C.S.S. Virginia
3. The Battle of Drewry's Bluff
4. Beginning of the Midnight Raids
5. The Chesapeake Expedition
6. Raid in North Carolina Waters
7. Havoc Along the North Atlantic Coast
8. Pursuit of the C.S.S. Tallahassee
9. The Confederacy Topples
10. Escape to the Florida Coast
11. Voyage into Exile
12. Expatriate
Appendix: Vessels Captured by the C.S.S. Tallahassee
Notes
Bibliographic Note
Index

CHAPTER 6 (aftermath of Wood's raid on the U.S.S. Underwriter at New Bern)

At sunrise the Confederates pulled into Swift Creek, some seven miles up the Neuse. During the day, while Wood conferred with Pickett [General George E. Pickett, the army commander of the Confederate effort to retake the port of New Bern from the Federals], the raiders tended the wounded and held funeral services for their fallen comrades. Wood lost five killed, fifteen wounded, and four missing. The enemy's losses consisted of about nine killed aboard the Underwriter, their bodies burning with the ship, some twenty wounded, and twenty-six carried off as prisoners, many of them without shoes or trousers against the February cold. Each of Wood's boarding cutters bore the marks of enemy balls, the white wooden plugs inserted averaged fourteen to each boat engaged, evidence of one of the most arduous cutting-out expeditions in naval history, especially in view of the proximity and intensity of enemy fire from shore. (In many respects, Wood's capture of the Underwriter was similar to an expedition of the British "Sea Wolf" Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, who in the service of Chile in 1820 cut out the Spanish frigate Esmeralda in the harbor of Callao, Peru.)

SPECIAL FEATURES

Frontispiece: John Taylor Wood, circa 1858
Illustrations: Eleven, spaced throughout the book, including three sketches of the escape through Florida drawn by Wood, including the sketch on the jacket image shown here
Maps: Eight, spaced throughout the book, all original, commissioned by the author and produced by cartographer Richard Walker, showing areas where Wood was active
Book Club: Second printing (1982) shown here, is a National Historical Society Book Club edition in both hardcover and paperback

WANT MORE WOOD?

CHAPTER I (Click "See All Editorial Reviews" below, then scroll down for a description of Wood the man and his tactics from the first paragraphs of the book )